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Coyotes-Wolves-Cougars.blogspot.com

Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions.
This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization.
Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

Tenuous population still not open to trapping

Wilderness is not a requirement for some wild things, and that can be construed as fortunate for Ohio. While not entirely a manicured maze of residential cul-de-sacs splayed amid cornfields, Ohio isn't exactly a zoological Eden, either.

It's remarkable, then, that bobcats are showing up in places where they haven't been seen in generations. Habitat has come a long way, as have the cats. Not long ago, the road-kill remains of a bobcat were picked up in Richland County, about an hour's drive northeast of Columbus. In November, a young male bobcat in farm-heavy Williams County in the northwest corner of the state was ensnared in a trap and later died after being untangled.

Although those two individuals fared poorly in their pioneering, most Ohio bobcats are doing well, said Suzie Prange, wildlife biologist with the Division of Wildlife. Not so well, though, that anyone should expect legal trapping in the very near future. Bobcats, the state's lone resident native wildcat species, remain listed as endangered. They will still be kept out of harm's way should the listing be downgraded to threatened. After that, who knows?

"I see the possibility of limited trapping in the foreseeable future," Prange said, although that future seems at least five years away. The bobcat's reappearance is relatively recent and, thus, fragile and somewhat tentative.

Extirpated by hunting and habitat loss some 160 years ago, the bobcat began to make a slow comeback in recent decades by emigrating from West Virginia and Pennsylvania. In recent years, the resurgence has accelerated.

Among a current statewide population that Prange says might approach 1,000 is a well-established cluster of bobcats in the former strip-mined terrain of Noble County, 100 or so miles southeast of Columbus. Reclaimed strip mines, where rocky outcroppings create sheltering overhangs and shrubby, grassy growth spawns rodents for dining, appear to be a preferred habitat.
Outside of that stronghold, bobcats appear to be more transient and less residential.
"In about 80 percent of the available habitat, they're not self-producing yet," Prange said.

The wildlife division has been trying to find out what's up with Ohio's bobcats. The research has established that the Noble County population is genetically distinct from bobcats in other relative strongholds in southern Ohio, including Shawnee State Forest and the Jackson-Vinton county area.
Autopsies on dead bobcats have revealed, Prange said, that the diet consists almost exclusively of voles, mice, squirrels and rabbits — with an occasional raccoon or muskrat. Based on the contents of about 100 stomachs, hunters should be happy to know that bobcats appear to pose little threat to Ohio's wild turkeys. "We've found two incidents of bird remains. We were a little surprised" the number was so few, Prange said.More surprising was the stomach contents of a Mahoning County bobcat, which had devoured a porcupine. Quills and a hind foot were unmistakable, although where an Ohio bobcat found a porcupine remains unanswered.

A more relevant question centers on how quickly the established bobcats of Noble County can link up with the more widespread and footloose population that isn't readily reproducing, if at all. Such a connection should facilitate more widespread breeding that one day is likely to stretch throughout much of southern and eastern Ohio, Prange said.

Although bobcats can vary widely in size and weight, adult males average about 28 pounds and adult females about 15 pounds. When trapped in Ohio, a bobcat must be released, which isn't overly difficult for an experienced trapper."They're not as bad in a trap as you would imagine," Prange said. When approached, they "cower down like most other things."

Two Massachusetts Eastern Coyotes at their den site

Eastern Wolf in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada

Aldo Leopold--3 quotes from his SAN COUNTY ALMANAC

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

Aldo Leopold

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Aldo Leopold

''To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."

Wildlife Rendezvous

Like so many conscientious hunters and anglers come to realize, good habitat with our full suite of predators and prey make for healthy and productive living............Teddy Roosevelt depicted at a "WILDLIFE RENDEZVOUS"

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This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer. In addition, my thoughts and opinions change from time to time…I consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind. This blog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot and manifestation of my various thoughts and opinions, and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today. All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. Rick Meril and WWW.COYOTES-WOLVES-COUGARS.COM make no representations as to accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.